Recent decision records
Each bubble is a topic. Its area shows that topic’s share of the body’s decisions, so the panels compare what each one spends its time on; labels give the counts. Hover a bubble for a real example.
Sources. New York City: Department of City Planning zoning application portal (NYC Open Data), plus Manhattan community-board resolutions tied to a place, from the Block Party archive. Boston: Planning Department Article 80 development review (Analyze Boston); Boston publishes far fewer planning records than San Francisco, and its Zoning Board of Appeal decided 4,217 appeals over the same years, mostly variances and housing. San Francisco: Planning Department decision records (DataSF), including Planning’s zoning sign-offs on liquor, food and entertainment permits.
Method. Records were sorted into 11 topics by record type and keywords; expect 10–20% of records near a topic boundary to be misfiled. The four bodies have different jobs and publish different records, so compare the mix of topics, not the raw counts.